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Supervisors

A/Prof Andre Luiten

Start date

Oct 2009

Submission date

Oct 2013

Wenle Weng

Thesis

Compact Optical Micro-Resonator Frequency Standards

Summary

As a frequency reference, whispering gallery mode (WGM) microresonators can possess extremely high quality factors. When compared with traditional Fabry –Pérot (FP) resonators, WGM microresonators are compact in size, cheap to fabricate and their quality factors are not easily affected by outside environment. Due to these outstanding features, my project aims to use WGM microresonators as an optical frequency reference to make laser’s frequency ultra-stable.

Why my research is important

Despite a great deal of interest to applications of the WGM resonators in numerous fundamental science and engineering applications, limited application has yet been made of these types of resonators to frequency stabilization and clocks. Until now the best examples of this relied on bulky, fragile and complex optical systems to produce appropriately shaped optical fields. In contrast, this project aims to capitalize on recent innovations in nano- and micro-photonics, which allow microscopic tailoring of the optical fields, so as to deliver the same result but in a simple, robust and compact configuration. This, in turn, can deliver the latest technologies to the industries and hence improve the performance of systems reliant on high quality time and frequency like networks, navigation, radar, and fundamental science research projects.